A disgruntled Kansas City Chiefs fan came to Sunday's game wearing a 'Blackout Arrowhead' shirt. / Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

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KANSAS CITY – This was strictly a (takin’ care of) business trip for the Bengals. A beat-down of the 1-9 Chiefs would be redundant, and no more difficult than driving a nail. Use the proper end of the tool and pay attention to your thumb. There aren’t many teams, ever, in the NFL about which another team can say, “All we have to do is not bump into the furniture and we’ll win.’’ For a decade or so, the Bengals were one of those teams. Now it’s Kansas City’s turn.

Give Cincinnati credit for not playing down to the KC level, which at this point is somewhere in a hole in the ocean. “Diligent,’’ Marvin Lewis called his team’s effort. The Bengals set an early tone, and rode it easily to a 28-6 win.

Nine mornings ago, they’d lost four in a row and were prepping to play the defending Super Bowl champs. We were writing obituaries and phrases such as “pitchers and catchers report.’’

Now, two convincing wins later, the Bengals are back in the playoff photo. Either that means they’re playing the way they’re supposed to, or that an NFL season is nothing if not lengthy and mildly schizophrenic. A little of both, probably.

Give the Bengals credit for taking things seriously. The fear in games like this is the favored team gets lulled early, and panics late. It almost happened Sunday, when the Texans needed overtime to beat Jacksonville. It never had a chance here.

The Chiefs led 3-0, when Cedric Peerman took a direct snap in punt formation and ran 32 yards to the KC 39. Minutes later, Andy Dalton threw a 4-yard fade for a TD to A.J. WhoCatchesEverything. A few plays earlier, Dalton had scrambled for 11 yards on 4th-and-7 from the Chiefs 36.

Give the Bengals coaches credit for realizing the need for an early gamble to shake the offense from any possible doldrums. And to let the Chiefs know this wasn’t going to be anything but another bad day. “The aggressive start set the tone,’’ was Dalton’s explanation.

The Bengals ended the game with 53 seconds left in the first half. BenJarvus Green-Ellis scored from a yard out. That made it 21-3, Bengals. Kansas City hadn’t scored more than 16 points in six weeks, and wasn’t in the mood to do it Sunday. It’s possible to win a two-halves game in the first half, but maybe only if you’re playing the Chiefs.

The Chiefs run the ball well. They rush the passer. I won’t say that the Chiefs were not a representative opponent. I’ll just say I was having Lost Decade flashbacks by halftime.

The game was so uniformly depressing for the locals, they’d have needed to attend a funeral to cheer up. Fortunately, lots of them were already wearing black. At least those who bothered to show up. They announced the crowd at 63,336. That was comical, and about 20,000 empties short of the truth.

An organization called Save Our Chiefs urged the few who did attend to wear black. “The color of mourning,’’ the movement’s founder explained to the Kansas City Star. Most of the tiny crowd obliged, giving Arrowhead Stadium the look of a mausoleum, only moreso.

The fans came ready to boo QB Matt Cassel at every appropriate opportunity. He obliged. Cassel threw for all of 93 yards before being benched in the third quarter. It wasn’t all Cassel’s fault. The Chiefs had two rookies starting on the offensive line, and no receivers capable of beating single coverage.

Regardless, the Stripes did what they came to do. Lewis maintained even when his team was losing that it wasn’t playing poorly. Whether that was true or a necessary psyche-soothing, or both, is open to speculation. It’s a question that will be answered in the next six weeks.

Should the head coach be able to coax a playoff spot from a team that was 3-5 at midterm, he’ll be rightly applauded as someone who kept the whole thing from coming apart. If the Bengals don’t get to January, they will be seen again as a team that only makes it to the postseason when the stars align and the schedule is easy. And Lewis will be seen as just another .500 coach.

That’s then. Now is the Oakland Palmers, at PBS Sunday. The Palmers aren’t very good. But they’re better than KC, and their QB is interesting. “Carson’s a helluva guy,’’ Domata Peko noted. “I can’t wait to get my hands on him.’’